Thursday was eventful. I know it’s Saturday now and I could’ve wrote about all this yesterday, but, y’know, new scanner equals fun. Anyway…

I had quite a good haircut. Getting a haircut is often traumatic for me. When I was a kid, I used to grow my hair into a huge dome, then every four or five months I’d be dragged to the barber shop, and a smoky man would cut my hair and stab me occasionally stab me in the scalp with his scissors. Since I’ve been in Berlin, though, haircuts have been a lottery. Even when I’m speaking in English, I tend to be a bit vague about how I want it, “About this this long on top, a bit shorter on the side and back.” In German, my vagueness seems all the more vague. But on Thursday, a lovely chap called Pierre cut my hair. He did a wonderful job. I explained the bit longer/bit shorter top/back and sides thing, and he said, “Aaaah, I do it classic look, yes?” And, if it’s not too vain to say so, my hair looks good after Pierre. I think I love him.

A bit later I was on the bus. A Down’s syndrome child and his father sat behind me. The child had quite a gruff voice, and was talking a lot. And I promise I’m not being cruel here, but he sounded so like Timmy off South Park, just in German, and not repeating the same word over and over again. He made me smile, I enjoyed hearing him shouting out the words for traffic light, lorry, police car, etc. But then, of course, I began to worry about myself: why do I enjoy that? Then the headspin of conflicting thoughts began. Why do I enjoy that? well, why not? should I be enjoying a child’s disability? well, there’s nothing you can do about it, Craig, so it’s okay, isn’t it? but if it was a non-Down’s child doing that, you’d probably be getting irked and wondering why he wouldn’t shut up.The conclusion to this is, I have got to the age of thirty five, and I still don’t know how to communicate with people with any sort of disability. I’m even weirdly self-conscious if I talk to someone in a wheelchair, even if it’s just someone with a broken leg. I wish I knew how to talk, I wish I’d learned that when I was younger. It’s a fault of mine that I need to work out, but I don’t come into contact with many people with disabilities.Or am I just thinking about things too much? I don’t know.I guess, though, Stan from South Park said it perfectly in the episode Timmy 2000, where Timmy joins a rock band, The Lords of the Underworld.

You see, we learned something today. Yeah, sure, we laughed at Timmy, but what’s wrong with laughter? Just because we laugh at something doesn’t mean we don’t care about it. Timmy made us smile, and playing made Timmy smile, so where was the harm in that? The people that are wrong are the ones that think people like Timmy should be “protected” and kept out of the public’s eye. The cool thing about Timmy being in a band was that he was in your face, and you had to deal with him, whether you laughed or cried, or felt nothing. That’s why Timmy rules!

The last thing that happened on Thursday was something that made me angry. And I had a little chat with a neighbour yesterday, and she was similarly irked. After returning home from the above talked-about bus journey, I noticed that there was some dog poo in the hallway of my building. It was quite clearly there cos someone brought it in on their shoe. But I just knew that someone in the bulding would blame me and Billy. Or the family at the top of the building with the cute new Labrador puppy.I’d forgotten about it, but then at around 9.30pm, the doorbell rings. It’s the guy who gets money off his rent for washing and cleaning the hallway and stairs. The conversation went something like this:He: Did you see the dog poo downstairs?Me: Yes.He: I just thought that maybe cos there’s only two dogs in the building…Me: Why would I leave it there if it was Billy’s poo?He: So it wasn’t your dog?Me: No, of course not!He: Are you sure?Me: Yes, of course I’m fucking sure.Then I slammed the door.Not sure what my point is here, I just wanted to get it off my chest. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….

I just typed a lenghty reply to you blog – (the one that you put on twice and by the time I submitted it was gone and now my text is lost and I have to go on do some work)

Again in short:

Having fun with the canner sound quite nerdy, but I think your fun comes from the “scanning old stuff” – so from goint through your past…

Dont’ worry about the Down’s kid – your’s onviously was a warm enjoyment (how could you get a coldhearted enjoyment out of something like that). My experience is that sick and/or diabled people like it when you act normal. Being tiptoed around is rather annoying after a while. Even a risky joke sometimes goes down quite well (although that demands experience). And most Down’s kids are really quite happy if recieving some loving care – so nothing to be sorry about.(also I have this nagging feeling that your “bio clock” may be telling you that you’d be ready for some kids… but that’s potentially a dangerous comment).

Remeber the night of the 11th (bloggged) and don’t be too hard on your neighbour – how should he know you would never let that happen (he’s not reading your blog it seems – and you may not want him to). But rant on if put to it I’ll side with you!

Have a nice day (mine is shit – I’m on-call – so next work free zone is tomorrow at 9:30)

Alex. Sorry about that, the timing of me noticing that I’d put this post up twice, and you commenting must’ve been too close. Sorry. Kids? Err, not so sure about that…My main problem with the neighbour was him automatically coming to confront the dog owners in the building without actuallyy noticing that the poo wasn’t curly-out-of-the-bum shape, but off-the-bottom-of-a shoe shape.

Well Craig, I guess you should apologize to your neighbour who wants the hall to look “extrem sauber”… Germans like that neat, shiny almost impossible perfectness. The f*&$ng bastards!

Seriously: he’ll now probably think you DID leave the poo there.

On the kid with down’s: people with Down’s always come up to me for an autograph shouting GUUUUUUS! (because i look like a famous dutch singer called guus…)irritates the hell out of me, but i accept it.

Now I did it again – and it was entirely my fault (started writing a message – thought about Billy -went to check out his site – and was curious enough to check out the comments to an entry (Alarm!) – and boom my message was gone…) – so don’t worry nothing is your fault – I can do it without you!

Re your neighbour – he seems a bad detective (Bad Chan: “Poo on floor means dog owner is murderer”) instead of a good detective (Good Chan: “Poo with foot impression can only mean one thing – poo carried in by foot”) (sorry to all asians for the stupid chinese talk – no harm intended – just somehow a memory of the past) – mabye there is some comfort in the fact that he is at least a bad detective. (Or mabye it was his foot impression and he left it on a “fresh” turd?…naa!)Thing is: a lot of dog owners don’t give a shit (pun intended – although it’s a little less funny typing it the second time) – so it’s the overall dogowners’ reputation you are up against. And if you ever walked on the sidewalks of Vienna you’ll know what I mean. So I’d think it’s nothing personal.

Have a nice day and greetings to Billy! (Shame I cannot watch his new films before tomorrow morning, because they won’t let us install the necessary software at work…)

I sort of sympathize with the genitor… One of the reasons why I don’t get a dog (another is the obvious torment to live in the center of the city and all the poor creature would see – legs, legs, legs, everywhere legs) is that I just can’t make myself pick up dog poo, human poo, any poo. Or vomit. Or for that matter – accept the fact that the dog eventually will die… and I would die of grief.

Anyway, I used to work with grown up retarded people, and I miss it a lot. I miss discussing things with them, trying to understand their universe, trying to make life a bit easier for them. I miss the complex simplicity and the immediate emotional response. I miss all the things they taught me about life in general. Though I burned myself out in the process…